Visual Index ~ American Graffiti's Best Shot(s)

Where were you on 7/2? Hopefully watching American Graffiti (1973) to better appreciate today's edition of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", our collective series in which we invite anyone who loves movies  'round the web to select their favorite image from a pre-selected movie. [Next Wednesday we'll be discussing the brilliant and disturbing Dead Ringers (1988) so do not miss that.] This week we return to simpler times...

1962 by way of 1973, in point of fact, courtesy of George Lucas's first Best Picture nominee, the very fine nostalgia fest American Graffiti which we thought an appropriate choice for the 4th of July Holiday. more...

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'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' Returns on July 3rd

Our weekly group-look at essential visual moments in movies from all genres / decades resumes in two weeks so Queue these movies! Season Four has had wonderful turnout from great blogs so let's complete the season this summer with a robust party (bring all your friends!) every Wednesday evening through summer's end!

July 3rd American Graffitti (George Lucas, 1973)
 [Amazon | Netflix | iTunes]
"Where were you in 1962?" went the tagline for this hit which went a long way towards popularizing 'instant nostalgia' movies. I wanted something nostalgic for the holiday week but mostly I chose it because I've never seen it and its a gap in my Oscar knowledge (5 nominations including Best Picture). Legendary DP Haskell Wexler is credited as "visual consultant". If you know anyone who was a teenager in the 1960s, use them as "nostalgia consultant" ;) and if you're feeling really ambitious, I keep reading it makes a strong double feature with Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993). 

July 10th Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)
 [Amazon | Netflix | iTunes]
David Cronenberg's artful chiller about twin brother gynecologists (Jeremy Irons at his career best) and the vaginally, uh, complicated woman they both love. This week's choice is in honor of Nick Davis of Nicks Flick Picks. This film plays a key role in his first book The Desiring-Image: Gilles Deleuze and Contemporary Queer Cinema 

July 17th Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964)
[Amazon | Netflix | iTunes]
This year's December release Saving Mr Banks concerns the making of this movie. It's garnering much pre-release curiousity so let's revisit this supercalifragilistic musical fantasy starring the practically perfect in every way Julie Andrews. Trivia Note: July 17th is also the 58th anniversary of the opening of Disneyland! 

more titles tba... the season ends in late August

Curio: Mitch Frey's Film Typologies

Alexa here. The German photographers Bernard and Hilla Becher pioneered the art of the typology: grids of images of various examples of a single type of object. The technique was to photograph a series of similar objects, usually industrial structures, from similar vantage points to highlight what their differences were. Illustrator Mitch Frey has used this technique to create grids of types from the world of film, including these 70s movie men. He's turned the typology into a fun guessing game of "Name That Movie!"

We'll continue the guessing games after the jump, with 70s ladies, and typologies of Clint Eastwood through the years...

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Podcast: A Look Back... and Forward. (What Movies Should Inspire Future Films?)

new podcast!
In part two of the conversation which began with Django Unchained and random final Oscar hunches, we hear about four actors that Joe Reid plans to snub, revisit looooooong Best Pictures that Katey Rich hasn't seen (The Last Emperor anyone?), listen to Nick detailing Viola Davis' future, and learn why Nathaniel hopes Hitchcock will inspire more films like it... even though most people thought it was terrible. [44 Minutes. With Nathaniel, Nick, Katey, and Joe.]

Topics include:

• Sixth spot snubs: Jennifer Ehle?
• Most recent Best Pics that we've each missed from The Green Mile to The English Patient 
• Susan Sarandon circa 1975
• Second-Guessing: Anna Karenina, Take This Waltz, Moonrise Kingdom
• 2012 Movies We Hope Inspire Future Movies from Magic Mike to... 21 Jump Street. (Hey, it was Channing Tatum's Year)
• Queen of Versailles repurposed. Make your own movie! 
• The Fog & Fatigue of Awards

You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen right here at the bottom of the post. Join in the conversation by commenting! 

2012 Inspirations. Future Movies and Retro Glories

Premature Jessica Chastain Nostalgia. Is She Streep 2.0 ???

Remember when Jessica Chastain brought her grandma Marilyn to the Oscars in February?

What a sweet moment that was. Do you think she'll take her again this year?

What a difference a year makes, huh? Just last year we were wondering who she was and how she'd arrived to us so fully formed as an actress, and I had the pleasure of asking her just that shortly before she won her first nomination (Best Supporting Actress, The Help). This year she'll be fighting it out for the actual Best Actress trophy for Zero Dark Thirty.

Should Jessica be nominated in January (very very likely), one might even be tempted to think of her as Streep: The Next Generation. Meryl Streep is a tough act to be compared to but consider the similarities. Meryl Streep was a late arrival to the cinema (as actresses go) making her first motion picture in 1977 (Julia) in her late 20s after stage triumphs and degrees from Vassar and Yale. Jessica didn't arrive on movie screens until her early 30s last year though she had been filming movies since her late 20s (some of them were significantly delayed before release) after stage triumphs and an acting degree from Juilliard. By Streep's third year in the public eye she had co-starred in three Best Picture Nominees (Julia ,The Deer Hunter, and Kramer vs. Kramer -- the latter two won) and was a two-time Oscar nominee and winner and a full-fledged movie star. By Jessica Chastain's second year in the public eye she will have presumably co-starred in three Best Picture nominees (The Help, The Tree of Life, and Zero Dark Thirty) and become a two-time nominee.

The only thing missing in the comparison is a) the Oscar win for her second nomination which is a maybe at this point and b) the full fledged stardom. Chastain is definitely a known quantity now but not exactly a household name. Her films haven't had the seismic impact of Streep's breakthrough pictures -- The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer were colossal hits of their day though The Help's box office reign last year was not unimpressive.

Jessica Chastain and her Take Shelter co-star Michael Shannon at a party for Zero Dark Thirty this week.

If Chastain wins this year, do you think she's got a triple the caliber of French Lieutant's Woman, Sophie's Choice and Silkwood, in her immediate future? Or is this way way way too much to ask?